Tuesday, April 25, 2017

The Cutout That Wasn't

Today has been one of the weirder days in beekeeping.  If you'll remember last Friday I got a call from my husband to come check out a bee colony that had moved into the wall of the apartment complex he works at.  I get there and sure enough, there are bees flying in and out.  Some carrying pollen.  The resident says that they have been there for two weeks or so.  Talking to the maintenance guy, who thankfully has participated in cutouts before and knows not only what to expect, but also why spraying them is a horrible idea, he seems to think that if the resident has noticed them for a week then they've been there for at least 3 weeks.  So, we formulate a plan of attack.  My husband and I will build a bee vac and bring bee suits and hive tools.  We both spend the weekend watching videos of other people doing cutouts.

I took a few hours off work today and head over to the apartments.  My husband had already started working on the bee vac.  We built it using a Styrofoam cooler, an old package box, some extra tubing, and a shop vac.  There is a hold in the cooler that can be used to regulate the suction.  If it looks like they are getting overheated, we can put an icepack in with them to cool them down.


I didn't think this was too bad for a short-notice attempt


So, bee vac is built and we pack all the stuff into the Jeep and head over to the building with the bees...


And nothing.


No bees.  No bees flying.  No dead bees.  No sign of them being sprayed.  We even took a piece of the siding off and knocked on the underboard.  Nothing.  It was like they absconded over the weekend.  Damn.  I really wanted that colony.

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Another Weekend, Another Inspection

I started in the backyard today.  The green hive looks good.  Open and capped brood, They've started drawing out the top foundation, but just barely.  I love it when they look like I expect them to.  The orange hive is also chugging along nicely.  They might even need a super in a couple of weeks.  I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to get any honey this year.  I've always heard that you can either make bees or make honey, but it's hard to do both.  And I definitely made bees this year.  

The white hive looks like it's going to be a problem.  It appears that the queen that they raised failed for whatever reason.  No brood, larvae, or eggs that I could see.  It also seemed that every available spot that could hold eggs has been filled with something.  The top box is packed with nectar and the bottom box has lots of nectar and pollen.  I treated with OAV on Wednesday.  I don't think it has anything to do with the queen failure because if there was a queen prior to the treatment then there should at least be some 4-5 day old larvae.  I also don't think they would be as honeybound.  I gave them a test frame from the green nuc.

Speaking of the green nuc, it had 4 frames of brood, but hadn't moved up into the top story yet.  I took one frame of eggs as a test frame for the white hive.  The Auburn nuc hasn't started in the top story yet either.  I saw their queen and lots of brood in different stages.  I've been noticing orientation flights, so the foraging force should be growing.

Next, is the outyard.  Both of these hives are blue and white, so I'll have to differentiate between them based on location.  There is the old stand and the new stand.  To make matters complicated, the old stand was the queenless half and the new stand has the old queen.  Confused yet?


I got an interesting call on my way home from work yesterday afternoon.  My husband works at an apartment complex and he said that they have bees in the wall.  I stopped by and sure enough, there are bees flying in and out, some of them carrying pollen.  It looks like we're going to be doing a cut-out next week.  I'm kind of nervous about it.  It seems easy enough, the maintenance guys will cut open the siding, I'll go in and get the bees, and they'll close up the hole.  Yeah, right.  It's so not going to be that simple.  

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Happy Tax Day!

Well, almost.  It's always nice when you get a few extra days to pay Uncle Sam. 

Since I last checked in, all of the equipment I ordered has come in and has been painted.  In the backyard, there are two resource hives, a green one and an orange and blue one.  The orange and blue one will henceforth be known as the Auburn hive (War Eagle!).  There are also three full-sized hives, a light green, a white, and an orange.  I ended up switching a few boxes around just to make the boxes match (green with green, orange with orange, etc).  What can I say?  I'm weird like that.

So, lets get to it, eh?  First, the green nuc (resource hive).  You might remember that this was the hive that got the queen and another frame of brood from the white hive earlier in the year.  They have drawn out the two frames of foundation that they were given.  I saw the queen and an entire frame of eggs/young larvae.  I added the second story with 4 frames of foundation.  If these get drawn and filled before the summer solstice then I'll use them as brood bombs for other hives.  

The Auburn nuc contains the smaller of the two colonies with a new queen.  They have 4 frames of drawn out comb with 4 frames of foundation up top.  Interestingly enough, when I changed out the bottom boards I found what appears to be the bottom of two queen cells, torn open from the side.  The marked queen is still present and the number of bees is not consistent with a hive that has recently swarmed.  Perhaps the queen took out some of her rivals upon being uncaged.  I'm starting to see foragers coming and going from that hive, so it looks like the population is starting to sort itself out.  That's what I love about bees.  They will do what they do and can correct a lot of my mistakes. 

The light green hive, which contains one of the new queens, are starting to draw out foundation in the top box.  There is open brood, so the new queen seems to have been accepted.  Foragers have started flying.  I've still got the entrance reduced to the smallest opening until they build up their population.

I didn't open the white hive today.  They should be very close to being broodless in the next few days, so I think I'll take that opportunity to treat them with oxalic acid vapor.  

The orange hive, which contains the queen from the old green hive (which is really the hive that started the year as a nuc, confused yet?) almost look like they are in early swarm prep mode.  I saw a few queen cups.  They are dry with no eggs, so they could be practice cups, but the hive does look like it's getting a little crowded though.  I opened the broodnest up by giving them some frames that are half empty (deep frames with shallow foundation).  I also gave them a second box of foundation.  A couple of those frames are also half frames (I'm out of deep foundation).   I'll keep an eye on this hive to make sure that they aren't planning to swarm and may open up the broodnest again using these frames depending on what I see.

A few other things to note.  The cinnamon stick thing seems to have worked on the Auburn nuc, so I'm going to try it on the white hive as well since they are being harassed by 
Most concerning, I've noticed bees crawling outside the hive.  It's not exactly the right time of year for tracheal mites and I'm not seeing K-wing.  It's not a concerning number yet.  Usually less than a dozen a day.  If it doesn't clear up after the OAV next week then I'll reassess the situation.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

It's D-Day

Today is the day that the new local ordinances go into effect.  As of today, I have 5 "production" hives and 2 nuc/resources hives.  That means I have bees in 7 boxes with two empty slots for preventing swarms and doing other beework.  I've printed out these same pictures and had them notarized just in case I need to prove that the hives were established when the ordinance went into effect.



The outyard hives

The backyard hives

I'll admit that this really irritated me.  It was snuck in without any discussion.  It's like they thumbed through a neighboring city's laws and picked out the ones that looked good.  They could have at least looked at the laws in another neighboring city that say that hives must be kept 25' from the property line OR have a flyaway and the beekeeper must provide a water source.  At least they grandfathered in existing hives.  I've voiced my displeasure to the council member who pushed it and invited him to the house to see the hives.  He accepted, but doesn't seem to be in much hurry to make the time to do it.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Can We Talk About Ants?

Ants are the bane of my beekeeping existence.  It's bad enough when they go after my hive-top feeders.  But last year I lost a nuc to ants.  They started out going after the nectar and honey.  Then they moved onto the brood.  They were literally chewing through the caps to get to the brood.  I moved that hive onto a cinder block in the middle of a kiddie pool full of water.  That kept the ants out, but I lost too many bees to drowning.  I tried diatomaceous earth and the ants laughed at me and kept on crawling.

One thing that did help a little was bait bottles.  Take a plastic soda bottle and put a couple of tablespoons of borax and sugar, with just enough water to make a paste.  Then poke holes that are big enough for ants, but too small for bees to have access.  In theory, the ants will take the bait back to the nest, kill the queen, and voila...no more ants.  In reality, it helped, but didn't stop the carnage.

What finally worked was a specialized stand that my husband built out of PVC pipes and the rack out of an oven.  Each leg has a little cup on it that holds water.  The ants can't cross it and the bees aren't likely to drown in it.  That stopped the ants, but by that time the only thing I could do was combine the two halves of the resource hive into a single 4 over 4 nuc for the winter.  That became the nuc that we started out with this season.

This year, I'm trying something different.  I've been reading how ants hate cinnamon.  So, I've propped up all of my hives on cinnamon sticks.  It forms a physical barrier between the stand and the hive.  I suspect that I'll have to replace the sticks every couple of weeks depending on how often it rains, but hopefully this will prevent problems this year.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Coming Together

About half of my equipment came in.  I love it when I come home to find a big box from Mann Lake before the shipping notice has even made it to my email inbox!  I have three deep boxes, plus frames and foundation to go in them.  I'll admit here that putting together frames is probably my very least favorite part of beekeeping.  I can't wait until my kiddo is old enough that I can pay him to do it.  I'm still waiting on the resource hive from Brushy Mt., but I've got what I need for right now.

The queen that was in the queenless half of the green hive has been released.  I didn't find her, but I found 5 sealed queen cells.  I'm not sure if they are trying to supercede her or if they thought they had gone queenless.  I cut them out and I'll check them in a week to see if there is uncapped brood.  If there is then we're all good.  Otherwise I'll give them a frame with eggs on it.  I gave them a second deep of foundation to work with.

The other new queen was uncaged and walking around.  For the record, marked queens are freaking awesome!  I much prefer raising my own queens, but I may have to learn how to mark my queens.  Their population is a little lower than I'd like, so I think the plan of transferring them into the nuc hive when it gets here is the right thing to do.  I'm sure that they will not be pleased about being moved twice in two weeks, but it is what it is.  

I think I'll end up shuffling some of this equipment around when everything gets here.  The colony with the marked queen is going to go into the resource hive when it gets here and the orange box that they are in now will be used as the second deep for the other orange box.


The two hives on the left have new queens and the white hive is raising a queen.




Monday, April 3, 2017

Release the Queens

The new queens have been in their respective hives for two days.  I initially left the cork in to buy her an extra day or so of protection.  I went in and pulled the cork today.  I left the candy and will let the workers release them on their own.  Hopefully that will give them enough time to be accepted.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Well, that changes things....Part 2

Sometimes the beehaving gods smile down on you.  Today was one of those days.  The outyard hive has finally gained enough population that I don't feel like complete crap for splitting them.  The queen and half the resources were placed on a new stand right next to the old stand.  One thing I did try to do was give the queenright half some empty comb so she has somewhere to lay and give the queenless half most of the eggs and young larvae.  At very least, the queenright half will need another deep when it comes in, but I've ordered enough for all of them to have double deeps.

So, the tally is as follows:  There are now two outyard hives, both in a single deep box.  The backyard has one nuc, one single deep that will be a nuc, two single deep hives, and a double deep hive.  Once all of the new equipment comes in and gets painted, I'll figure out how to name them to keep them straight.

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Well, that changes things...Part 1

So, Thursday night my city council passed a new package of animal ordinances.  In between outlawing tethering dogs and requiring registration of your cat they passed an ordinance that says that beehives must be kept 300' from the property line.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you need more room to have bees than to have horses (only 100' required).  They basically looked at a nearby city and copied their asinine ban verbatim.  This was passed without discussion or input from any beekeepers in the city.  Luckily, hives that are already established when the ordinance goes into effect will be grandfathered in and won't be subject to the setbacks.  Even more luckily, the ordinance doesn't go into effect for another week.  So, I took the logical approach of splitting everything I could to get my hive numbers up before the ordinance goes into effect.

Fortunately, in the case of emergency equipment needs, there is a shop about an hour from my house.  Today, I ran over and grabbed enough equipment to cobble together two more hives.  I also lucked out and he had a couple of spare queens.  I took a couple of frames of brood from the white hive and gave them one of the queens.  They are in a full sized hive, but will be moved into half of a resource hive when the order I placed last night comes in.

I decided to split the green hive evenly.  One deep for each half.  This was partly due to their strength and partly due to the fact that I really needed boxes on stands.  This was the bottleneck today because the queen decided that today was the best day ever to play hide-n-seek.  It took close to an hour to find her.  Once I did, she remained on the old stand and the other half of the bees and resources were moved to a new stand and given the other queen.

In other happenings, I'm starting to see foragers coming from the nuc that was split off of the white hive, so that's encouraging.  The holly bush is buzzing with bees and the clover is just barely starting to bloom here and there.  The spiderwort is blooming, but the bees either haven't found it or prefer the holly.

Queen, Queen, Who's got a Queen?

I'll start out by apologizing for missing a week.  I did get into the hives last week, but had a closer-than-I'm-comfortable-with br...